Leyah's Chair | Teen Ink

Leyah's Chair

April 17, 2014
By wallflower3 GOLD, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
wallflower3 GOLD, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan
15 articles 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted." -Randy Pausch


Leyah, some say is crazy. Crazy may be just a small portion of what it takes to explain what Leyah is. Her father and mother were both expecting a perfect combination in her genes, have the good qualities of both of them. It turns out that their dream was the farthest thing away from them when they watch their child grow up to be mentally sick. By the age of eleven, Leyah was taken out of her normal school. Its not that she was endangering anyone’s safety, you see, Leyah was not the type that was the “murder insane” she just thought different than your typical eleven year old. Her parents quickly placed her in an insane asylum. That will be the last contact she will ever have with them. Leyah was quiet; she had short dark hair, olive skin, and big gray eyes. Mysterious grey eyes they were, wandering from here and there, sometimes it looked like she was looking to see if anyone was watching her. And no one was, too busy in their own world. Nurses too focused on their restless job of taking care of these crazies. The truth is, Leyah was placed in the wrong section of the hospital. Not exactly “harmless” but not considered a menace or a danger either. She was a mastermind. Smarter than her parents were ever able to comprehend, she was doubted, which triggered the spark in her as a child. Her favorite part of spending time in the hospital was in the recreation hall, located in the heart of the hospital. After her second meal, that’s where she was to be from 1:30 to 2:15. This is where patients had the ability to interact with each other, of course, fully supervised. But Leyah would sit there, “Leyah’s Chair” some called it; because it sat by the only window in that hall and in that spot she was fully able to see the hall. She’d sit there, observing the other patients. Thinking about being looked down upon by the outside world. She frankly didn’t care about the other patients, calling them hopeless peasants in her head. She knew she was capable of so much more, more outside of this senseless hospital. Once again she was smart. When it came to “bed time” she was placed in her cell. Sometimes she had to be chained due to the way she would flare and throw her body around as she slept. But the strange part was, is that she was fully asleep. It comes morning, she wonders why her wrists and ankles are chained and sore, only remembering precise details of her dreams, yet not enough to explain them to someone. Her days were long, but the nights seemed to fly by. That’s because when she is awake, her mind is in constant motion, not stopping for a simple conversation. That’s partly why she was considered “crazy” because she did not talk. Leyah found no interest in conversing with someone lesser than her. She thought of herself as superior, but came across shy to people because she thought they didn’t need to know who she really was. But her chair continued to be her only comfort from day in to day out.


The author's comments:
I wanted to write something from a different perspective, and I think focusing on a topic like this (mental instability) is really attentoion-grabbing and keeps you wondering.

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